On
Monday, Connect for Health Colorado (C4HCO) - Colorado's health insurance
marketplace - held its first board of directors meeting since officially
opening its doors for business October 1. At the meeting, C4HCO staff
released enrollment
data from its first official week of operation. Between
October 1-7, 18,174 accounts were created and nearly 163,000 unique visitors
used the shopping web portal. CCLP believes these numbers are very
encouraging and indicate that interest is high. Moreover, these numbers
indicate awareness that a new opportunity exists to shop for and obtain health
coverage.

As of
October 7, 243 individuals were enrolled in a new health insurance plan through
Connect for Health Colorado. While this number may appear somewhat low,
CCLP believes many individuals may be taking their time and are primarily
shopping and comparing their options at this point. After all, shopping
for insurance is inherently complicated and coverage purchased between October
1 and December 15 will not become effective until January 1. In addition,
people that purchase health insurance now will have to pay their first month's
premium as soon as the health plan bills them, so many may decide to wait until
closer to the date when they will actually have coverage. (We remind readers
that you must purchase by December 15 in order to have coverage by January 1).

Other
states who opted to establish their own insurance marketplaces are also
experiencing high levels of interest. The Washington Post reported today
that 100,000 Californians are in some stage of enrolling in health insurance
through the state-based marketplace. Washington, New York and Kentucky
also report great success during their early days of enrollment.

Over the
days and weeks to come, it will be important to keep in mind that Colorado
decided to take a different approach by developing its own state-based health
insurance marketplace. Recent reports, such as this article from
CNN, indicate significant technology hurdles and user interface glitches in the
federal insurance marketplace. However, this impacts only those states
that relied on the federal government to develop and operate their marketplaces
- not Colorado.

Government reopens as Obamacare remains intact

On
Wednesday, Congressional leaders reached a deal to reopen the government and
raise the nation's debt ceiling. With the President's signature early Thursday
morning, the new law funds the federal government through mid-January and
leaves the Affordable Care Act funded and intact.

Some
Republican Senators and Representatives had demanded that any deal include
provisions to defund, delay, or repeal all or part of the health reform law.
But the final deal (see
page 9) includes only a small provision requiring that the federal government
verify the income of all individuals who receive tax credits to purchase
insurance through the new health insurance marketplaces. The federal
government already verifies the income of many applicants for tax credits.

The new
income verification provision is expected to have no impact on Connect for
Health Colorado, our state's health insurance marketplace. Connect for
Health Colorado already verifies the income of all applicants for tax credits
whose reported income is significantly lower than their income from the
previous year.

Importantly,
the final deal did not include many of the other proposals to delay or repeal
other provisions of the health reform law. The Medical Device Tax, which
helps provide more than 20 billion in revenue for the health reform law, was
not repealed, despite intensive lobbying efforts to eliminate the tax.
Earlier this week, CCLP and more than 100 national and state
organizations sent a letter to
members of Congress opposing the repeal of this tax.

Most
importantly, the overall law, including the Medicaid expansion that will take
effect in January in Colorado, remains funded.

The final
deal, passed into law as the Continuing Appropriations Act of 2014,
provides funding for the government until January 15 and raises the debt
ceiling until February 7th.

Read more
about the deal to reopen the government from the New
York Times. The full
text of the new law is available from the Government Printing
Office.

Obamacare
Frequently Asked Questions: Part III

As
Coloradans continue to shop for and purchase health insurance throughConnect
for Health Colorado, CCLP continues to answer questions from individuals and
families who want to learn more about the health reform law.

Q. Can I purchase a Medicare Advantage Plan through the
marketplace? What about a Medicare supplemental plan?

A. No. Medicare recipients cannot purchase Medicare
Advantage plans or Medicare Supplement plans through Connect for Health
Colorado. While the health reform law strengthened Medicare
benefits for seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries (see this report
from CCLP), the law does not affect Medicare open enrollment or the purchase of
Medicare supplement plans. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported
that the rollout of the health insurance marketplaces is causing confusion for
some Medicare recipients.

Medicare
Open Enrollment began on Tuesday and continues through December 7th. Find
out more on the web or
by calling 1-800-MEDICARE. Medicare has also developed a helpful fact
sheet to answer questions about the new marketplaces and
Medicare.

Q.
Why do people keep raising
questions about coverage through the Exchange for Members of Congress?

A. The question of
"equal treatment" in Exchanges for Members of Congress and their
staff came up again during the budget debate. CCLP has written about this
issue in previous
updates. In brief, the Affordable Care Act requires Members of
Congress and their staff to get their health insurance through health Insurance
Exchanges. Currently, the federal government pays about 72 percent of
the cost of health insurance for lawmakers and staff and it was not clear
whether that would continue under the ACA. It is clear that Members and staff
are not eligible for tax credits for the purchase of health insurance. A
couple of months ago, the Office of Personnel Management issued a
proposed rule clarifying that the federal government could continue to make
contributions to health insurance for Members of Congress and their staff.
While some argue that this is special treatment for Congress, in fact, it
places Members and staff on what is essentially an equal footing
with any other American who works for a large employer. Those who were arguing
to take away the employer contribution for Members of Congress and staff were
arguing that they should not get the same assistance now available to every
other American, whether through their employer or through Exchange tax
credits.